


dreams you never thought you’d lose

by waveydnp



Series: fics for people [7]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: 2013, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-03
Updated: 2019-03-03
Packaged: 2019-11-08 16:21:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17984546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waveydnp/pseuds/waveydnp
Summary: what if the radio show hadn’t worked out?





	dreams you never thought you’d lose

**Author's Note:**

> for rizzo <3

Dan takes the stairs two at a time up to his bedroom and slams the door behind him when they get home after receiving the news.

Phil’s not surprised and he reckons deep down Dan isn’t either, but it’s still a blow. To Dan it’s a confirmation of every fear he has about not being enough. To Phil it’s mostly just bad luck.

He’s sad about it. But not like Dan. Phil doesn’t slam doors when he’s sad. Mostly he just wants a cuddle and maybe a little cry. A good heart to heart with his mum.

Dan wants… well. Phil doesn’t like to think about that. He stands there in the doorway of their flat with his hands in his pockets and his trainers still on his feet, afraid to move from the spot where he’s now rooted to the ground.

It’s wasn’t good news, but Dan’s reaction is infinitely worse.

Phil prides himself on making Dan happy, on knowing him like no one else could. But he doesn’t know Dan in moments like this. He becomes like smoke, wispy and dark and slipping through Phil’s fingers. He locks himself away in his hole and leaves Phil to agonize over how helpless he feels.

He really, _really_ wants to call his mum. He’s not exactly in the frame of mind to be providing comfort, but he can’t leave Dan alone without at least offering a hand. Or a shoulder. Anything Dan might want.

He toes his shoes off and climbs the stairs, stopping in front of Dan’s door. He puts his ear to the wood and hears nothing. He’s not even sure if that’s good or bad.

“Dan.”

He waits. Where is the line between supportive and pushy? Protective and overprotective?

“Dan,” he says again.

He waits.

Dan’s voice is ragged when he finally responds. “I can’t.”

-

His mum isn’t surprised either.

“It was a gamble,” she says. “You knew that going in.”

It makes him angry. He didn’t ring her for an I told you so.

“You could be sympathetic,” he says, chin quivering with tears he suddenly realizes he doesn’t want her to be witness to. “Just for right now.”

“I’m sorry, love. I am. I’m proud of you both for trying.”

He hugs his knees to his chest. “Dan won’t talk to me.”

“He’s a sensitive boy.”

It’s an understatement to say the least. “I’m scared mum.”

“Of what?”

“Like… everything? Everything feels worse because he’s just… crushed. I don’t know if he’ll still want…” He can’t even bring himself to say it.

“Don’t be daft, Phil. That boy adores you. He’s upset, you both are. Your future looks different now, but I promise it’ll still include him.”

“But… what do we _do_?” The weight of the world feels firmly placed on his shoulders.

It’s too heavy. He can’t carry it all. Suddenly he feels like a child again, like he’s been playing dress up all this time and he’s only now realizing his shoes are three sizes too big for his feet.

“You don’t need to worry about that now,” she says warmly. “You have time. You’re still so young.”

“Not _that_ young,” he mutters.

“Nothing great is ever achieved without taking a chance, Phil. It didn’t happen this time for you. Next time it will.”

“How do you know?”

He can picture perfectly the look on her face when she says, “I just do.”

He knows she doesn’t, but it makes him feel a little better anyway.

-

He gives Dan another hour before joining him. He strips down to his underwear and climbs into Dan’s bed prepared to be ignored. He’s ok with it as long as they can be close in proximity, but as soon as he’s laid down Dan turns around and buries his face in Phil’s chest.

Phil wraps him up and hugs him tight, dropping his face down into Dan’s hair. He kisses Dan’s head and Dan cries. Phil tries not to but eventually he can’t help it, the disappointment at having to say goodbye to something they’d worked so hard for too much not to shed a tear or two.

They cling to each other until the sun has nearly gone down and the light in Dan’s room is low. Phil’s tears have dried and Dan’s are drying but the air around them is thick with so much sadness and uncertainty Phil feels like he’s choking.

“What are we gonna do?” Dan asks, voice barely more than a croak. He’s laid out on his back now, clutching Phil’s hand in his like it’s the last thing he has left.

Phil turns on his side to stare at the profile of Dan’s face against the dull light of a London twilight, different somehow than it had been in Manchester. He wants to be strong for Dan. He wants to have all the answers, but the truth is he’s scared too.

“I don’t know,” he whispers.

“We can’t afford this place without that job.”

Phil’s stomach tightens. It’s not a feeling he’s used to, not a problem he can realistically claim to have felt the effects of much in his life to date. Even now he reckons all he’d have to do is ask and his parents would float them for a while, help them until they got their footing back again. They’ve done it before, after all.

He doesn’t mention it, though. He knows it’d only make Dan feel worse. This was supposed to be their fresh start, their foray into a proper career, a life as actual adults.

Adults don’t need their parents to pay their rent.

“We can get other jobs,” Phil says, stroking the back of Dan’s hand with his thumb. “I can ask Hazel for editing jobs. We can make more videos. Maybe get a smaller flat if we have to.”

Dan’s staring up at the ceiling. “It’s just so fucking humiliating. I was working for the BBC, Phil. My parents were actually proud of me for once.”

“Dan.” He can’t help the slight air of reproach in his tone. 

“I don’t wanna be positive,” he says, pulling his hand free of Phil’s. “I want you to admit it fucking sucks and that you’re as pissed off as me.”

“I don’t want to make you feel worse.”

“It won’t,” Dan says. “It’ll make me feel better. Or at least not so guilty for feeling like shit.”

Phil sighs. “Fine. I feel like shit too.”

Dan rolls onto his side to face Phil and tucks his hands up under his pillows. “Tell me.”

“I called my mum earlier,” he admits.

“Of course.”

“She acted like it was inevitable. Like she knew all along it wasn’t going to work out.”

“Maybe we were stupid to even try,” Dan says.

Phil frowns. “No. We weren’t.”

“I should’ve stayed at uni.”

His frown deepens. “I’m not going to help you feel worse. This isn't helping anything.” He starts to roll over, ready to get up and give Dan more space. He thought he was ready but Dan’s dark cloud may be too all consuming right now.

Dan doesn’t let him go. He flings his arm out and grabs Phil’s wrist. “Please don’t leave me.” His tone suggests a plea for more than just company in the moment. It asks for reassurance that Phil is still in this thing for the long haul.

It makes his heart ache, but behind that pain is warmth, a reassurance of his own. “I’m not. Ever.”

“Even though I drag you down?” Dan asks sadly, still clutching Phil’s skin so hard it hurts a little.

“You don’t. You make me brave. You push me to take chances.”

“I push you to fail,” Dan says quietly.

“No.” Phil’s voice is firm. “We didn’t fail. We’re awesome and people weren’t ready. That’s their loss, not ours.”

Dan doesn’t say anything, just looks at Phil’s face with tired, bloodshot eyes and an expression of resignation.

“We’ll be ok,” Phil says. “I promise.”

“What are we gonna tell the fans?”

Phil shrugs, sighs a resignation at Dan refusing to accept his offers of reassurance. “The truth?”

Dan laughs bitterly. “Great.”

“The fans love us either way. The fans are on our side, Dan.”

Dan laughs again, and the sound cuts into Phil’s gut like a knife. They’ve not had the smoothest sailing in that regard either. Having a large number of people deeply invested in their content has proven to actually go far beyond that, the investment touching aspects of their lives that they’d never agreed to make available to strangers.

So many of their memories are not their own anymore. So many sweet moments in the beginning, so many declarations that were only meant for each other have been exposed and analyzed and etched into the consciousnesses of people who were never meant to see them at all.

Giving them this as well feels a little like a slap in the face.

“We can say whatever we want,” Phil says, anger touching his tone now. “It’s our life, not theirs.”

Dan’s eyes go a bit wider. “Ok. Sorry.”

Phil pulls him closer, crushes Dan to his chest and cradles the back of his head. “You don’t have anything to apologize for.”

Dan hugs Phil’s waist. “I wanted this so bad, Phil.”

“I know,” Phil whispers. “I really did too.”

-

They let their channels go quiet for a while. Dan doesn’t know how to address it and Phil refuses to leave him behind. Every social media account they have blows up with questions, but they make a semi permanent home of the sofa in the lounge and steadfastly ignore reality in favour of takeaway pizza and video games.

They find solace in the togetherness. It’s a temporary solution, a plaster more than anything, but Phil knows this is the only way Dan knows how to do it. Ignore it until it doesn’t hurt quite so much. Phil feels it gnawing in the back of his mind, the question of what comes next, but knowing that whatever it is will include Dan is enough for now.

They have sex. A lot. Sometimes they don’t even make it to the bedroom, they just go at it right there on the sofa. They paid for it after all, and it wasn’t cheap. If they want to sully it, they will.

Phil doesn’t say as much, but he wants to enjoy this place while they still have it.

And there’s a satisfaction in the physical intimacy that’s more than just sex. Phil thinks Dan feels the same. There’s so much they’re afraid to say, so much they’re not allowed to let anyone else see, and right now the restraints feel tenfold. They’re chained to their denials and their plausible deniability when the cameras are on, but right now they’re off. They can do and say and be whatever the fuck they want.

The radio show was their reason, their excuse to move into a nice flat together. What do they do now that that’s gone? Dan’s right, as much as Phil hates to admit it. They can’t afford this place on YouTube income alone, and Dan would sooner live on the street than take any more money from Phil’s parents.

“We can’t hide forever,” Phil says one night, when the gnawing becomes too much to ignore.

Dan looks at him sharply at first, but loses the venom almost as soon as it’s arrived. “One more night?”

Phil nods.

“Then what?”

Phil’s still got his controller clutched in his hands though their game is paused and all of Dan’s attention is focused on Phil now, waiting for the solution.

“I reckon we have to decide that together,” Phil says. “Right?”

Dan frowns. “Of course. You think I wanna do this shit on my own?”

“I hope not.”

“Well I don’t.”

“Good,” Phil says. “‘Cause I’d do whatever you want.”

Dan’s quiet for a stretch of seconds that feel to Phil like hours. “Even if I wanted to quit?”

“Do you?”

“I don’t know,” Dan murmurs. “Maybe. Maybe it’d be easier.”

Phil’s heart is pounding hard and fast. “Maybe it would.”

“Do you think it would?”

“No,” Phil says, no hesitation. “Not for me.”

“You think it’d be easier for me?” Dan asks.

Phil sighs. “I think you shouldn’t be thinking about it like that. You should think about what would make you happy.”

“The radio show made me happy.”

Phil drops his controller and grabs Dan’s to toss somewhere into the corner of the room. Dan yelps in protest but Phil ignores him, pushing him down onto the sofa to lie flat on top of his chest.

“Ow bitch,” Dan croaks. “You’re heavy.”

“Good. I’ll crush you to death if you don’t shut up already.”

“Rude.”

“Your mum is rude,” Phil counters.

“Your fucking face is rude.”

Phil licks right up the length of Dan’s nose. “Yep, it is.”

“Now I have to kill you,” Dan says matter-of-factly.

“You can’t, I’m already crushing you to death, remember?”

“Fine then, my ghost ass will haunt you.”

“Ooh, ghost ass, eh?” Phil grins. “You reckon we could still have sex? Can ghosts have sex?”

“First of all, you’re a perv. Second, ghosts aren’t real, idiot.”

“Then I guess I win, don’t I?”

Dan manages to wiggle an arm loose from said crushing and shove it up under Phil’s t-shirt to tickle his ribs. Phil shrieks and grabs the errant hand, pinning it down into the cushion of the sofa. “Tickling’s cheating!”

“I don’t remember that in the rule book,” Dan says. He’s smiling, his jaw rosy in its little patch, fringe falling down into his eyes. He’s shaggy and desperately needs a haircut, but Phil finds it hopelessly endearing. It’s even starting to curl a little at the ends.

“You look happy,” Phil murmurs.

“You have that effect on me every once in a while.”

Phil leans down and kisses him. “I wish you could be happy all the time. That’s all I want.”

Dan doesn’t answer, just stretches up to catch Phil’s mouth again. Phil feels the tip of Dan’s tongue brush against the inside of his lip and that’s all it takes to lose sight of where their conversation had started and where he’d been meaning to take it.

He’s got a hand down Dan’s trousers before he knows it. Dan’s kissing him so deep and making sexy little noises as he grips Phil’s arm and encourages him with every stroke and squeeze.

Phil had promised Dan one more night after all. ‘Then what’ can wait til morning.

-

Dan hits a million subs a few days later. Phil bakes him a shitty lopsided cake and Dan cries.

-

They celebrate the anniversary of moving to London by packing.

They have a lot more things to move out than they did to move in. Phil’s parents are coming tomorrow to help, but today it’s just them.

Dan is sat cross-legged on Phil’s bed watching him sift through the t-shirts in his wardrobe. Phil holds up some ugly old plaid thing and Dan shakes his head. Phil tosses it in the donate pile and moves on to the next.

“You know, you could go through your stuff too,” Phil mumbles, trying not to take it personally how big that pile is getting at Dan’s suggestion. “This isn’t like packing for a holiday, you can’t just leave it all to the last minute.”

Dan shrugs. “You’ll help me with it later.”

“Will I?”

“Mhm.”

Phil gives him a look, but he doesn’t push it. Dan gets some slack today.

“I wish we were going on holiday,” Dan says.

Phil’s afraid to meet his eyes. He wants to give Dan some hope, something to cling to so this doesn’t feel quite so much like mourning the loss of a life they almost had. “We can pretend this is a holiday.”

Dan is quiet. They both are. Phil has a whole mess inside his own head, and maybe they can talk about it someday, but he knows that’s not today.

He does say, “I’m gonna miss this place a bit,” because he’s already getting nostalgic for the crack in his bedroom ceiling and the wail of 3am sirens.

Their hearts broke in this house, but there were other things. They were brave in this house too.

“I don’t think I will,” Dan says, nodding at the jumper Phil holds up.

Phil can’t help going on the defensive just a little. “There’s a nice memory or two here.”

“We’ll make better ones.” He gives Phil a smile. It’s small and the joy in it is anything but pure. It’s tinged with sadness and loss and apprehension, but the fact that it’s there at all is progress. Joy even when warming the edges of doubt is something to celebrate.

“We will,” Phil says quietly. His chest is tight with the multitudes contained within it for this moment. His fingers itch to grab his camera, the instinct to capture the bits he wants to remember ingrained after years of following the instinct.

His camera is already packed away, though. He’ll have to make do with it being another nice memory.


End file.
